Unsteady
by xXUsEdXx
Summary: He hated that she made him unsteady. Implied HieixOC


_I wrote this as a birthday present to myself. I decided to make a divergent one shot between Hiei and Hikari outside the story "Of Blood and Fire". XAmbassadors' song "Unsteady" inspired this whatever this is XD_

* * *

 _Hold, hold on, hold onto me_

 _'Cause I'm a little unsteady_

 _A little unsteady_

"I always find you here, don't I?" Hiei's ears twitched at the sound of the human girl's voice, the one that seemed to have attached herself to his side, as she arrived to his place of solace. Turning his eyes to her, he wondered how she could always have that gentle smile when he would always treat her harshly. Hikari reached for the branch he sat upon, her thin fingers curling around the wood and pulling herself up to sit beside him. Once she was properly situated, smoothing the deep red skirt she wore and pushing her pitch-black hair from her pale face. Her smile returned, so slight and so gentle that it could fade in the breeze in just an instant. "You could travel to any faraway place and still come back here," she said in that soft voice of hers—just as soft as her smile.

Her behavior around him had always left Hiei a tad off guard. "What concern is it of yours?" he bit out through his teeth. "I come here to be alone and yet you always seem to intrude on that."

"You could always send me away, but you don't." Hikari leaned against the trunk of the tree, gazing at him with that damningly strange serenity fit for royalty when she was and behaved anyway but. Her eyes were one of the strangest things about her. They were the color of flames, of the fire that burned inside of his soul. Her eyes bothered him the most and yet he couldn't find it in him to turn away from the dancing flames. "Why is that, Hiei? You'd snap at Gia and Zeri, even your own friends, to leave you be. Well, everyone except Yukina, I think." She paused, before continuing. "She resembles you. Her eyes match yours, you know, that lovely crimson color. You and her are related, right?"

"Perceptive little wretch, aren't you?" Hiei managed to jerk his eyes away from Hikari. He probed her mind to see if anyone had told her this information, if she chose to divulge it to Yukina; he didn't want Yukina's happiness to be tainted by the fact of her brother being a criminal. He was surprised to find that she had come to the conclusion all on her own and she didn't breathe a word to Yukina. There was no deceit in her manner and it unnerved Hiei just as much as Yusuke and Kuwabara's behaviors. Being around his comrades as long as he had been, he had come to expect that from them individually. However, this girl that he barely knew, this girl he didn't _want_ to know, was an open book. There were no hidden words within the lines that adorned her soul even though he expected them. When they never appeared, it threw him for a loop.

The silence between them was full, comforting even, before it was broken. "I won't tell Yukina. I'm sure you've gleaned that much from me," murmured Hikari, lacing her fingers together and settling the joined hands on her lap. Hiei's gaze flickered back to her, taking in her lax composure, before averting his gaze once more. "Who told you of my capabilities to probe your mind? The fox?" he asked, almost certain Kurama had heeded the girl's requests.

"Kurama told me a few things. But you're perceptive of me as I am of you." She confirmed his suspicions and stopped, her expression becoming guarded just for a moment as she chose her next words. "Did it hurt? Getting that eye in your forehead?"

"That isn't your concern." His tone was sharp, trying to ward her from probing the subject further. His attempt had not gone unnoticed by the way her expression barely flinched from its calmness, but still she continued. "It was your choice, but it doesn't mean I don't wonder if you were in terrible pain."

Hiei turned to glare at her, anger brimming to the surface. He clenched his fingers against his palm, his nails breaking skin. "Why do you care? It isn't any business of yours nor will it ever be! A worthless human like you-"

"A worthless human like me isn't allowed to feel pain at the thought of your sufferings and what ordeals you went through?" She cut him off, her voice rising just slightly from the usual tone she carried, trembling just a bit. Her eyes were fixated upon him now, the flames within them dancing with frenzied emotions that her voice would never carry. She was leaning forward now, closer to him, and he couldn't avert his eyes. No, he was pinned by those flames and couldn't fight them. "You may not know, but I can sense slight shadows, barely visible in my mind's eye, but enough for me to grasp any concept. I've sensed shadows of pain and you used it to get stronger, Hiei, but why won't you let anyone in to see the vulnerability that I know is inside of you?"

Anger gripped him something fierce, the tightness snapping his ribs and boiling his blood. "Vulnerability is a human emotion, something your kind has as a crutch and wouldn't overcome to get stronger. I've overcome and become stronger for it. A _fool_ like you can never understand how things are because of that gap between us!"

Hikari's expression suddenly collapsed. Her eyes brimmed with tears, crystalline drops tracing down the curves of her cheeks, her lips trembling. "Why are you making it a gap, Hiei? Why are you pushing me away?" she asked softly, her hands shaking with the tremble of her lip that seemed to encompass the entirety of her frail human body. "Do you think I'll reject you? Is that it?"

Her words hit him faster than any bullet Yusuke could have shot his way. Was that the reason he constantly pushed this girl away? Was that his excuse? He could say he hated the humans, but after meeting Yusuke, his perceptions have changed. There were strong, if not strong-willed, humans out there. Hikari was one of those strong-willed humans, yet this was the first time her composure has ever cracked in front of him. He had never seen her tears, had never seen her afraid—had never seen her vulnerable. If he hadn't been born in and hardened by the realms of the Makai, he would have sworn that she was a mirror to the scars deep inside of him.

He hated that.

He turned away once more, grinding his teeth together. He wasn't going to amend his words. He meant them and was not going to take them back. The girl had no reason to be attached to him as she was. She was the sort that drew humans to her and yet could also disappear among them like a ghost.

His senses blared on high alert as a movement caught his eye. Hikari's delicate hands reached for him. Before he could move, her fingers clenched the fabric of his cloak as he scented more of the tears that fell from those flaming irises. "Stop hiding yourself from me, Hiei. Please?" she whispered, her voice shattering like glass against his flesh. He felt exposed, bared to this girl with the eyes that spoke volumes to his soul, whose mind was never closed to him, whose fragile heart was just as exposed to him as his pains were to her. Hikari was gripping onto him so tightly, her feelings surging with that one action that it has left him unsteady and off his game. Hiei seized her wrists roughly, yanking her hands off of him, and watched her as her chest heaved, her hands lifeless in his grip.

"Don't ever touch me like that again," he growled.

Her voice was barely audible to the air. "Like what?"

 _Like you'll lose me…_ He banished the thought as soon as it formed. It was weak, beneath him. He didn't need it, had no use for it. "Like we're familiar."

"Aren't we though?" asked Hikari, averting her eyes for the first time. Her question was loaded, a gun waiting to go off. "We're as familiar as cogs in clockwork. You can't escape that fact, Hiei."

Slowly, Hiei released her wrists. He hated everything about this girl, from her fiery eyes down to her serene core. However, what he hated about her the most at this moment were her words. He hated the truth that laced them like a ribbon, tying them together by the strings of fate that caused the girl to be in his life.


End file.
